Federal Reserve

Why is there such a sudden obsession with monitoring what average Americans are saying on Facebook and Twitter? To be honest, the vast majority of what is being said on Facebook and Twitter is simply not worth reading even if you could understand it. But for the FBI, the CIA, the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Reserve, Facebook and Twitter represent a treasure trove of intelligence information. Tens of millions of us have compiled incredibly detailed dossiers on ourselves and have put them out there for the entire world to see. Since the information is public, the various alphabet agencies of the federal government see no problem with scooping up all of that information and using it for their own purposes. Many potential employers have also discovered that Facebook and Twitter can tell them an awful lot about potential employees. Social media creates a permanent record that reflects who you are and what you believe, and many Americans are finding out that all of this information can come back and haunt them in a big way. In the world in which we now live, privacy is becoming a thing of the past, and we all need to be mindful of the things that we are exposing to the public. (Read More...)

Have you noticed that very few people in the mainstream media ever directly criticize the Federal Reserve? But why should that be the case? Criticizing top politicians from both major political parties has become a national pastime. Most Americans love to throw mud at either the Republicans or the Democrats. But we are told that the Federal Reserve is “above politics” and that it is absolutely vital that the Fed remain “independent”. The reality is that the Federal Reserve has more control over the performance of the U.S. economy than the president even does, and yet most Americans never spend much time thinking about the Fed at all. It is almost as if someone has instructed us to “ignore the man behind the curtain” and most of us just blindly obey. With the economy in such a mess and with the national debt exploding so dramatically, isn’t it about time that we had a national conversation about the performance of the Federal Reserve? Isn’t it about time that we evaluated whether the Federal Reserve is doing a good job or not? (Read More...)

According to CNBC, the Federal Reserve “is planning on monitoring what you say about it on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook”. Apparently we are not supposed to be alarmed though, because as the CNBC headline states, the Federal Reserve just “wants to be your Facebook friend“. In fact, the CNBC article says that anyone that feels threatened by the fact that the Federal Reserve will be monitoring what we say on Facebook and Twitter is just “paranoid“. Well, if it came out that Barack Obama was setting up a system that would identify “key bloggers” and monitor “billions of conversations” on the Internet to see what was being said about him, wouldn’t there be thousands of articles expressing outrage? Sure there would be. The Federal Reserve is supposed to be an independent central bank that is above politics. So why in the world would they need to perform “sentiment analysis” on what is being said about them on “Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Forums and YouTube“? The Federal Reserve obviously intends to identify the negative things that are being said about it and the specific people that are saying those things. So is it really being “paranoid” to point out that all of this is more than a little bit creepy? (Read More...)

A one-time limited GAO audit of the Federal Reserve that was mandated by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act has uncovered some eye-popping corruption at the Fed and the mainstream media is barely even covering it. It turns out that the Federal Reserve made $16.1 trillion in secret loans to their bankster friends during the financial crisis. You can read a copy of the GAO investigation for yourself right here. These loans only went to the “too big to fail” banks and to foreign financial institutions. Not a penny of these loans went to small banks or to ordinary Americans. Not only did the banksters get trillions in nearly interest-free loans, but the Fed actually paid them over 600 million dollars to help run the emergency lending program. The GAO investigation revealed some absolutely stunning conflicts of interest, and yet the mainstream media does not even seem interested. Solid evidence of the looting of America has been put right in front of us, and yet hardly anyone wants to talk about it. (Read More...)

Does Lindsay Lohan understand monetary policy better than Ben Bernanke does? The other day, her Twitter account sent out the following message: “Have you guys seen food and gas prices lately? U.S. $ will soon be worthless if the Fed keeps printing money!” Well, it turns out that it was a “sponsored tweet” that Lohan was paid to send out, but in a subsequent tweet Lohan explained that “i actually do care about gas and food prices, so whether it’s an #ad or no, it’s important for people to be aware of it.” Okay, so we probably will not see Lohan at any “End the Fed” rallies, but it turns out that in her own bizarre way she has brought a little bit of attention to some very important issues. Food and gas prices are skyrocketing, and a lot of the blame for that can be placed on the shoulders of the Federal Reserve. (Read More...)

Last Friday, Glenn Beck did an entire show on the Federal Reserve. It had been a highly publicized show and many people were wondering how Beck was going to handle the subject. Well, to his credit, the show actually contained a lot of truth and it was definitely anti-Federal Reserve. Was the show perfect and 100% accurate? No, not by a long shot. But for a big name personality like Glenn Beck on a big cable network like Fox News to do an hour long show on why the Federal Reserve is bad is a very big deal. Many of us in the alternative media have spent a lot of time bashing the mainstream media (and rightly so), but when someone does something right, we should applaud them for it. The Federal Reserve was the topic for the entire show, and Beck and his guests discussed the creation of money, debt, the history of banking and the current financial problems of the United States. Glenn Beck even had G. Edward Griffin on the show. That was huge. There is not usually much on the mainstream news worth getting excited about, but in this case Glenn Beck’s show on the Federal Reserve was a very good step forward, and hopefully more mainstream news programs will begin to feel comfortable with taking an honest look at the Federal Reserve. (Read More...)

Have you heard the news? Gold hit another new record high on Thursday. It reached $1447.40 before settling back a bit. Most people responded to that news with a yawn. Why? Well, because it is happening so frequently these days. It seems like the price of gold is constantly setting a new record. Silver likewise is thriving. The price of an ounce of silver briefly hit $38.13 on Thursday. That was the highest price for silver in 31 years. But most people also responded to that news with a yawn. Why? Well, because the price of silver always seems to be going higher these days. Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar is struggling. The ICE Dollar Index fell to 75.340 earlier this week. That was the lowest it has been since December 2009. Even at a time when the sovereign debt crisis in Europe is flaring up again and there is tremendous instability all over the world the U.S. dollar still can’t find much traction. In fact, many are convinced that the U.S. dollar is on the verge of another major fall. So what in the world is causing all of this? (Read More...)